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Low-cost credit programs in developing countries have failed to achieve agricultural technology adoption goals. This research attributes the failure to the inability of poor farmers to bear the combined business and financial risks posed by adopting new technologies and develops proposals for the design of credit programs that reduce these risks. Agronomic and socioeconomic data are combined through simulation and mathematical programming to analyze problems of decision making under risk for developing countries. The results will assist in the design of new rural financial institutions conducive to the adoption of new production technologies by subsistence farmers.

Twice-daily check-up of the uterine contractions by the pregnant women is a recognized and accepted necessity. Using the "green" free-phone number to report the number of contractions, to answer the questions asked and to receive the instructions given has made it possible to reduce the prematurity rate and the duration of the consequent specific hospitalization. This new method of follow-up, applied to two identically recruited groups of pregnancies offers an undeniable low-cost improvement over the systems used previously.

Premature breaking of the membranes carries with it a serious risk of immediate or delayed ovular infection which compromises the prognosis. No diagnostic test with an acceptable error level was available to reduce the morbidity and mortality, in particular prior to 37 weeks of amenorrhea. The oligoamnios which accompanies the rupture increases the accuracy of the tocokinetic diagnosis, thus permitting a new and rigorous treatment in function of the stage of the pregnancy and the possibility of artificially inducing labor.

The diagnosis of fetal infection, other than in association with premature rupture of the membranes, requires the evaluation of various parameters. Children suspected are four to five times greater in number than those truly threatened. A new and important parameter has emerged as a result of tocokinetic investigation: in one case out of two 48 hours before birth and in three cases out of four during the day before birth, fetal motility, together with cardiac reactivity or not, appear to be very markedly decreased when the newborn will in fact be found to be infected. Tocokinetic study is thus a new source of help in the obstetric/pediatric decisions which must be taken in this context.

Manual evaluation of uterine contractility through the abdominal wall performed twice a day for 1 hour and reported by telephone every other day keeps pregnant women at risk of premature labour in a state of continual attention. When the women are disciplined, the recommendations, prescriptions and encouragements they receive in return result in a statistically significant reduction in the number of premature deliveries. More generally, this new and relatively inexpensive method leads to substantial savings. Such were the results obtained by comparing the courses of 2 series of pregnancies after hospitalization for the indispensable intravenous tocolysis.